Fatal Pose

by Barna William Donovan

  After slogging through the sand, he was afforded the simple turn of luck of finding a cabbie in the process of finishing his lunch in the parking lot above the beach. The man noted the soaking stranger over the top edge of an iPad he perused by a cup of coffee but didn’t do the kind of double-take Gunnar expected.

  Back at the Foundry, Gunnar got his tool bag out of the Charger, climbed the steps in the back, and entered his apartment in unscrutinized privacy. The adrenaline rush of swimming in from Quartello’s boat had given way to a stinging headache, and he didn’t feel like explaining what happened, in case anyone asked.

  He was glad to remember that Alexandra had taken the day off. Her agent was sending her to try for a commercial and a guest spot on some reality show.

  After discarding his clothes, Gunnar took a shower in his office’s private shower stall to get rid of the ocean’s salt and field-stripped the Sig Sauer. After wiping each of the pieces dry, he smothered them in gun oil and let them sit on his table.

  Putting on a clean pair of slacks, he wandered into his office and took a look at the gym. He found that Mike wasn’t on duty, but Bonnie Atwood, one of their receptionists, was supervising the gym. Gunnar browsed the crowd but couldn’t find what he was looking for. He was certain the day’s unscheduled swim in the Pacific was Joey’s doing, or rather his lack of care in gathering the information.

  But he soon stepped away from the window and walked over to his desk. He settled in his chair and leaned back for several seconds. He tried concentrating on his swelling headache and willing it away, hoping to aid the pair of ibuprofen tablets he’d swallowed in the bathroom. When it wasn’t working, he decided to give some activity a try instead and took on the messages on the phone. According to the display, he had six of them. Three of them were phone solicitors. Since he had no use for either roof repair, new tires, or new office furniture, he deleted them all about halfway through the sales pitch. The rest of the messages, however, were from Kelly, Diane, and Laura Preston.

  “You followed them to Whitlock’s and then just called it a day?” Kelly started the conversation immediately after the first ring. Not only did she want more frequent updates on the Whitlock case these days, but she had been ever more unpleasant in her questions about Gunnar’s operatives. Their conversation resumed the tone that had become a constant during the past week.

  “No, they called it a day,” Gunnar said.

  “But they had just made another move on my client!” Kelly protested.

  “Well, they didn’t exactly make a move on your client.”

  “Then what do you call these people circling his residence like sharks?”

  “You see, in L.A., Vegas, and Chicago terminology, they were casing the place.”

  “What the hell kind of a joke do you think this is?”

  “I don’t think this is a joke. I think this is the casing of someone’s house,” Gunnar said, an edge creeping into his voice. The conversation wasn’t doing anything for his headache yet. “In the early stages at that!”

  “So?” Kelly fought on. “They know where he lives.”

  “They know where he lives and jack-shit little else!” Gunnar let slip, realizing Mr. Quartello’s language had crept into his subconscious.

  “Marino, don’t swear at me!” Kelly snapped, although Gunnar thought he also heard her flustering. “I’m just concerned about the safety of my client and the work I’m paying you to do.”

  “Kelly, I’m—”

  “Not to mention I’m concerned about the kind of job those so-called investigators of yours are doing.”

  Hello, Joey ran through Gunnar’s mind. “Look, Kelly, I’m not swearing at you, except I’ve had a bad day so far. Now, as I was saying, they don’t know the route your client takes to work, the kinds of hours he keeps there, the kinds of hours he keeps at home, where he spends his time in between—”

  “Let’s just stay civil, okay? Then we’ll go from there.”

  “Deal.”

  “So, what’s got you so wound up? Found out how much bigger a scumbag your client’s brother really was?”

  “That too. But I got kidnapped and thrown in the ocean.”

  “Sure you did.”

  Gunnar rubbed his eyes and his right temple. Maybe the ache was showing signs of subsiding after all. “But the scumbag client part I had meant to ask you some questions about.”

  “Why should I even reply to that?”

  “You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?”

  Gunnar heard Kelly sighing on the other end of the line. It was an impatient, humorless sigh. The Whitlock case must obviously have been stressing her out more than he thought it would. So he was willing to consider cutting her a little slack, no matter how hard she was committed to busting his balls. Moreover, as he was just about willing to bet a lot of money on the possibility that Joey had screwed up in his fact-finding mission and caused the Quartello assault, he could sympathize with her fears about the Foundry Gym Irregulars.

  “Listen, I don’t want to spar with you,” he said. “Your client doesn’t yet seem to be in any greater danger than before. We’ll just keep Tommy, Amy, and Joey on him for the time being.”

  Kelly didn’t say anything. Obviously, she was waiting for more assurances of her client’s safety.

  “By any chance, could he take a brief trip out of town? A vacation up north to his cabin or over to those relatives of his in Seattle?”

  “Well,” Kelly said slowly. She sounded as if she was seriously considering the logistics of moving her client around. “I’ll have to check on that. See if his work can accommodate that.”

  “All right, do that.”

  “Seriously, though. What’s the situation with the Brad Holt case? Do you think this was murder?”

  Gunnar was taken by the fact that she sounded sincere. “I think it might have been.”

  “Wow,” Kelly said quietly from the other end. “Have an idea who it was?”

  “It’s hard to say.”

  “I think it sounds like you do.”

  “Someone from the WBBF.”

  “Someone from the company that was making good money off him? How does that work?”

  “It’s a long story. Although….”

  “Although what?” Kelly’s asked, her tone abrupt again. Perhaps she could already guess that he was about to ask for a favor. It was uncanny, Gunnar thought, how well they had gotten to know each other.

  “Although,” he said, then paused dramatically. “I think I can try a couple of things to speed this case along. So that I can devote my entire time to you and Copeland Whitlock.”

  “Yes?” Kelly asked, her suspicion harsh and insinuating.

  “Can you give me a really quick, really basic background on one Laura Preston? She’s the President of Operations of the WBBF. And I mean real Google Search 101 stuff? I need it as quickly as I can get it.”

  “Don’t you have a secretary you can use for Google Search 101?”

  “She’s off today. Could you get that intern of yours to do it and make it her exam for the week or something?”

  “How about I deduct it from your fee?”

  “I appreciate everything you do for me, Kelly!”

  “I didn’t exactly agree to this.”

  “But you will,” Gunnar said quickly, trying his best to sound as hurried as he could. “Look, gotta run, okay?”

  “You’re suckering me into more free service…I don’t believe this.”

  “See, Kelly, that’s why we make such a good team. We might bicker and argue, but we respect—no—even like each other.”

  “Cut the crap, Marino! You make it sound like we’re married, and that’s giving me a real uneasy feeling.”

  “I’ll talk to you later…and thanks again,” Gunnar blurted into the phone and hung up.

  That we
nt fairly well, he congratulated himself as he went to retrieve a can of diet soda from the small office fridge. Now there were two important appointments to set with Diane and Laura.

  He called Diane first and arranged a meeting with her at three in the afternoon.

  Laura, on the other hand, he wanted to see as quickly as possible. He called her office, and a mention of his name got him connected to Laura immediately.

  “Well,” Laura Preston said with enthusiasm the moment she got on the line, “there was an extra piece of information I wanted to get to you as quickly as possible. Thank you for getting back to me so quickly.”

  “It’s purely accidental, I assure you,” Gunnar said.

  “Come again?”

  “I’ll explain later. But what was it you needed to tell me?”

  “Something else I just came across regarding Holt and his business associates.”

  “You’re not, by any chance, talking about a person called Mr. Quartello, are you?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact,” Laura sounded like she was caught off guard. “It’s something we just learned. What do you know about him?”

  “A bit complicated. Let me come over to your office right now, and let’s talk about this. Can we do that this morning?”

  Laura sounded hesitant for a moment. Gunnar couldn’t be sure if it was for real or not. She should have been busy right now. Someone of her stature at a corporation like the WBBF should only have been able to take appointments weeks in advance. But now, she should also have been feeling nervous about a murder investigation she was just incapable of distancing herself from.

  “Sure,” she said at length. “I think so. Just come down to our offices as soon as you can.”

  CHAPTER 39

  It just made no sense, Laura Preston decided. The latest information that had turned up on Gunnar Marino still did not jibe at all with her first impressions of him. But then again, Laura had also admitted to herself that she had been hasty and prejudicial in forming those first impressions. On the other hand, the more she was finding out about Marino, the less sense it made for him to be working on behalf of a degenerate like Brad Holt.

  Laura had gone back to the WBBF archives and input the name “Gunnar” in the search engine instead of “Marino.”

  What she had found the second time around was an old article on a female bodybuilder named Erika Lindstad. She had been a very promising young amateur who, at one point, just dropped out of the bodybuilding scene. While she had competed, Erika had hard-core mass all the way. According to the article, not only had the reporter profiling her found someone of staggering size but mind-blowing strength as well. And Erika had told the writer that she wouldn’t have been able to accomplish half of what she did without the help and training and love and support of her boyfriend, Gunnar.

  Probably not too many bodybuilders out there named Gunnar, Laura felt it safe to assume.

  But Laura certainly didn’t expect him to be with a hard-core muscle woman. For some reason, she had pegged him as more of a fitness fan. Maybe physique. Of course, the reason wasn’t that male and female bodybuilders didn’t mix. Many of them did. Sometimes the elites, the hard-core men and women, could only find a mate who understood their compulsion in another hard-core athlete. Unfortunately, the machismo sector of the sport was also strong and out in full force. Sometimes the bigger the muscles got on a man, the more pliant and submissive he wanted his woman. Legion were the “muscleheads” with their eye-candy beach bunny girlfriends hanging off their arms. People like that were incapable of tolerating an equally strong woman. Then the other breed of sexists and male chauvinists were the so-called “bar bodies.” Marino, unfortunately, reminded Laura of the bar body.

  The bar bodies were the sloppy, superficial lifters who trained simply to score with the babes. They had no desire to go as far as a competition-level ‘builder. The bar body often looked incomplete. He would have large, pumped biceps and forgettable shoulders or a laughable back. They would have massive pectorals but undeveloped legs. Simply, they were pretenders. Because Marino had been away from competition for so long, and perhaps because his work schedule afforded infrequent workouts, his physique was close to the unfortunate bar body condition. Bar bodies, most definitely, did not go for hardcore, competition-level female muscle.

  But if Marino had once been one of the enlightened bodybuilders, what joined him now to Brad Holt? How did he wind up pursuing justice for a man who was the epitome of the macho, chauvinist, muscle-headed lout?

  He had been hired by a relative, Laura figured. Just as he’d told her, no doubt. There was someone out there who, for some reason, whether sincerely or because of simple, uncomplicated monetary gain, needed to know the details of Holt’s financial dealings. And, perhaps, just as simply, Marino took his money.

  But if that was the case, Laura wondered, could Marino somehow be swayed away from his investigation?

  Such ruminations, however, were cut short upon Marino’s arrival.

  “I think we have some interesting information to compare,” Gunnar Marino said after getting ushered into Laura’s office by Anabelle, her secretary, and the requisite greetings and handshake were taken care of.

  Laura urged Marino to sit down, making an effort to be open and enthusiastic. In fact, she had told herself moments before the private detective’s arrival, she would be smart to watch her every word, her every move with this man from now on.

  “Indeed, we do,” Laura said and sat down. “So, you also came across information about this Quartello individual.”

  Marino gave a brief nod and a sort of ironic half-smile. “You could put it that way,” he said.

  Laura could sense that Marino was attempting to downplay something important, but his mannerisms, that lopsided grin, made him look like a bizarre cross between a kid trying to explain how he was caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to, and a rather poor, “aw, shucks,” John Wayne imitation.

  She wondered what he was leading up to. He was frustratingly evasive again. “Yes? What did you find out?”

  “Holt had been involved with him in some sort of a drug distribution scheme, some series of drug deals. Not entirely clear on the details of the whole thing just yet.”

  Yes! Laura mustered all her self-control not to appear to be too excited to hear all this. Concerned, perhaps. She should look troubled to find out the tragic news about such a popular WBBF pro. “My God. What happened?”

  “Well,” Marino began, appearing to be looking for the right words. “Basically, I was taken to his yacht and questioned about the nature of my investigation.”

  “Taken…?”

  “At gunpoint.”

  This was fantastic, Laura thought. Maybe an assault like that would set Marino’s righteous anger—if he, in fact, had any and wasn’t a simple mercenary—onto the drug dealer. “You were kidnapped?”

  “Yes. That’s about what happened.”

  “And they wanted to know about your investigation. But how did they…?”

  “A mistake on my part, I’m afraid. I work with a team of investigators, and one of them got sloppy.”

  “That’s horrifying,” Laura gasped. “And did they try to intimidate you off the case?”

  “In a way, yes.”

  What the hell is that supposed to mean? Laura wanted to scream at him. “What did they tell you?”

  “That the way Hold died…. Well, it wouldn’t be their style, killing someone like that.”

  “Likely explanation,” Laura said and shook her head with a rueful smile. “Thank God they let you go with a warning.”

  “Well, I took a little swim,” Marino said. Again, with that annoying, idiotic way of understating the situation.

  Laura decided to raise a quizzical eyebrow.

  “They threw me off their boat, and I had to swim back to shore.”

&nb
sp; “This is unbelievable.”

  “Well, not quite,” Marino said with a kind of contemplative squint. Laura couldn’t decide if it made him look inscrutable or just clueless and slow.

  “I’m sorry?” Laura asked.

  “You see, the thing is that I think he—this Quartello character—made a fairly plausible argument.”

  Laura thought she felt a scalding shot of stomach acid rising deep inside her. “A plausible argument?” she asked, not having to pretend to be stunned and confused. “How’s that?”

  “You see, the thing is this; when Quartello resorts to violence, he does it in a way to, so to speak, communicate.”

  “I don’t follow,” Laura said, making an effort now to keep her composure.

  “Someone like Quartello will kill someone, or beat them up or hurt them, or whatever, to send a loud and clear message. You know, to send a message to his enemies or competitors or associates that are breaking the rules, to say that ‘if you step out of line, this is what’s going to happen to you.’”

  “Well, I’m not quite so versed in the ways of the underworld, but wouldn’t that attract police attention as well? That would seem to me to be extremely imprudent.”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “How’s that?”

  “An organization like Quartello’s is probably highly complex and layered. A boss ordering a murder can always keep himself well-separated from the people carrying out a hit. Oh, everybody will know what happened, but you can’t tie the boss to the murder in any court of law.”

  Marino paused, but Laura chose not to reply immediately. She nodded at him to go on.

  “So the point is,” Marino said, “that if Quartello wanted to kill Holt, he would have used a more visible, more direct approach. Not this Agatha Christie, poison-to-have-a-perfect-heart-attack approach.”

  Laura’s heart hammered now. Not so much out of fear, but frustration. It was rage searing through her system. She could have lunged at Marino and grabbed for his throat.

  “So, let me get this straight,” she said in what came to be quite clipped, yet agreeable, tones. “This drug dealer, Quartello, attacks you, threatens you, kidnaps you, yet you believe his story.”